I do apologize if Cid/Minoru is acting out of character. I like to imagine him as a pretty normal teenager, his obsession with being an eminence in shadow aside, before he gets isekai'd. This means that before dying, he may act like any normal teenager would, just a bit delusional and obsessed with power.

Just normal teen stuff.

Either that or he's still very inexperienced at acting like a mob character or an eminence in shadow since he doesn't have extra years to actaully practice.

Of course, once he's in the new world he'll turn to the chuuni Cid that we all know, with a few differences of course.

The setting sun basked the near-empty classroom in an orange hue. The second semester of my first year of high school was already almost over.

I thought it was only yesterday when my parents had decided to transfer me to this high school. It was an above-average school with a bit of a reputation among the locals for being the only high school with a focus on both academic and physical extra-curricular activities.

It was also one of only three easily accessible schools in the area, so it probably didn't have much competition...

All other schools in the region were either very prestigious and hard to get in or super expensive that only rich farts could afford it.

And it wasn't even like they taught different curriculums. No! They're all prestigious and expensive because they're sponsored by some top notch universities.

Ah, modern education at its finest.

Now where was I going with this? Eh, it doesn't really matter. Back to the near-empty classroom with definitely-not-the-main-character.

I say near-empty since I was still sitting down on my desk with no real plans to get up anytime soon.

At my side was my trusty duffle bug, filled with various equipment relating to my shadowbroker persona. All of them of course I bought with the stingy allowance that my parents gave me.

Outside the window, students could be seen leaving the school premises either alone or with a few friends. Up until recently I belonged to the former category, or at least that's what I like to say to myself.

I know that I said something about being an unassuming face in the crowd, but everything didn't quite go according to plan.

The original plan was, as I said, to be just another face in the crowd. I wanted to be mob character A. To do this I sat alone at lunch, never listened to the teacher's ramblings nor did I take down any notes.

Come to think of it, that may be one of the reasons why people found me 'interesting'.

But for some unknown reason a few days after transferring here, a lot of my classmates wanted to befriend me for reasons that I couldn't decipher.

When I asked them about they responded with varying answers, but the most common one was: 'I thought you were a pretty cool guy.'

Excuse me?! What part of average loner who stares out the window and gives off a vibe of 'don't talk to me' screams 'cool guy'?!

Turns out that in this day and age, trying not to stand out actually makes you stand out! It didn't help that I was a transferee and thus people would be naturally inclined to take interest in me.

Thankfully, after a while and eventually seeing that I wasn't all that interesting, they stopped approaching me. Even those that I 'befriended' didn't come back to talk to me after a few conversations.

With that out of the way, I finally achieved the title of 'unassuming background character'.

Or at least, that's what I thought.

Releasing me from my stupor, I heard the recognizable ringing of my phone, signalling that I had recieved an important notification.

I didn't have too many contacts saved and I made sure that all app notifications wouldn't actually notify me which meant only 1 person could be contacting me.

After briefly looking over at the message that I had just recieved and confirming that it was indeed who I thought it was, I pocketed my phone, picked up my bag and strolled out of the now empty classroom.

After walking for a minute, I eventually found myself at the school building's entrance where all the shoe lockers and regular lockers are.

I waited for a few minutes for my guest and with my duffle bag still hanging over my shoulder.

Eventually though, she arrived.

"Sorry I'm late Minoru-kun, the teacher wanted my help in cleaning up the club room." She greeted me.

The person in front of me is who I would like to a real pain in the ass. Her name was Akane Nishino. She is considered by many as the most popular first year student with a lot of people, guys and girls alike, vying for her attention for one reason or another.

"It's no trouble Nishino-san. I only got here a minute ago." I hummed.

She noticeably frowned and I knew the exact reason why she did so.

"Didn't I already tell you to drop the -san and start calling me Akane?" She said with a smile that I could tell wasn't one of happiness.

"Ah right. Umm, Akane...?" I... actually I have no verb to actually describe how I was saying it, but just trust my word that I was understandably confused.

Akane, obviously ignorant to my thoughts since she isn't psychic, nodded her head in approval of my using of her first name. Even though this wasn't the first time and I'd go back to calling her 'Nishino-san' by tomorrow.

At least I'm not getting her name wrong.

She's been approaching and trying to befriend me ever since I actually got her name write and saved her from a kidnapping. Not that she knew that least part of course.

From that point, Akane would always tell me to wait for her at the building's entrance so that we could walk home together since her's was much closer to the school than mine was.

I didn't know if she was doing this since she was still afraid of a kidnapping happening again or she just genuinely wanted to do so.

Of course that didn't really matter since we'd run into some sort of weird event be it a drug dealing, an assualt, or one time an attempted murder.

Each and every time I'd slip away

to put on my costume and jump in to diffuse the situation and be as cool as possible while doing so.

Doing that with Akane around probably wasn't the best decision seeing as the more I do so, the more she suspects that the 'Stylish Ruffian Slayer' and I, at the very least, had some sort of connection.

Akane looked out of the glass door and after doing so turned back to me.

"We should probably get going, It's starting to get dark."

"Hold up a minute, I need to get something from my locker."

Recieving a curt nod from her, I drop my bag down on to the floor, making a metallic ping sound as usual.

As I took some things out of my locker and proceeded to put on my outdoor shoes, Akane spoke up.

"I know that I've asked this several times and each time you'd never answer me, but what's in that bag of yours?"

I ignore her question as always and had just finished getting my things out of the locker. Putting them in my bag as quick as possible, I proceeded to close my bag but just as I was about to do so, a metallic shine was reflected off of one of the many metal objects in the bag.

Akane, having seen this, moved with speed that I never thought was possible from her to grab my bag. I could've sworn that I heard 'Finally, evidence!' coming from her, but it probably was just my imagination.

I moved to so as well and we ended up grabbing the bag at opposite ends. Apparently this was enough force for the bag to fully open, spilling all of its contents onto the floor for everyone to see. Numerous heavy thuds could be heard after the fact.

Fortunately, almost everyone has gone home, leaving no one to witnesd such an event.

Except one of course.

"Minoru?"

At that moment, I knew that I just made a huge mistake.

I imagine that this could've have happened if things in canon had happened differently.

This is only the first of many changes that I wish to incorporate onto the story, so stay tuned for more!